Ubuntu 8.04 – New Version with Long Term Support

April next year will see the release of Ubuntu 8.04, the next distribution with long term support for professional use.

Community Manager Jono Bacon announced the new LTS version, which has been dubbed Hardy Heron in the Ubuntu tradition of using animal names.

As announced by Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical – the company behind Ubuntu – will be supporting Hardy Heron for 3 years, and the server version for 5 years. The current long term support version is "Dapper Drake" (Ubuntu 6.06).

There are not tangible facts available about what "Hardy Heron" will include right now. Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" is still alpha (Tribe 5). An overview of current 7.10 development is available on this page. Developers will be defining the objectives for the next release Ubuntu Developer Summit – just like last year. The summit is scheduled to take place October 27 through November 02 in Boston.

Based on the release policy of Ubuntu and its KDE derivative Kubuntu, the next version of Kubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) scheduled for mid January would be a Long Term Support (LTS) version with three years support. Now, Kubuntu's chief developer Jonathan Riddell has announced that there will not be an LTS version; instead Kubuntu is relying on the KDE 4 desktop update.

On Thursday, the first alpha version of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is to be made available. The official release will be out in April 2010. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS should feature significantly more stability, being based on the just released Kernel 2.6.32 as a precedent to the Long Term version.